2.  Now, after this prayer, hear my supplication on behalf of the poor old man whom the imperial order had exempted from serving in any public capacity; though really I might say that old age anticipated the Emperor in giving him his discharge.  You have yourself satisfied the boon conferred on him by the higher authority, at once from respect to natural infirmity, and, I think, from regard to the public interest, lest any harm should come to the state from a man growing imbecile through age.  But how, my dear Sir, have you unwittingly dragged him into public life, by ordering his grandson, a child not yet four years old, to be on the roll of the senate?  You have done the very same thing as to drag the old man, through his descendant, again into public business.  But now, I do implore you, have mercy on both ages, and free both on the ground of what in each case is pitiable.  The one never saw father or mother, never knew them, but from his very cradle was deprived of both, and has entered into life by the help of strangers:  the other has been preserved so long as to have suffered every kind of calamity.  He saw a son’s untimely death; he saw a house without successors; now, unless you devise some remedy commensurate with your kindness, he will see the very consolation of his bereavement made an occasion of innumerable troubles, for, I suppose, the little lad will never act as senator, collect tribute, or pay troops; but once again the old man’s white hairs must be shamed.  Concede a favour in accordance with the law and agreeable to nature; order the boy to be allowed to wait till he come to man’s estate, and the old man to await death quietly on his bed.  Let others, if they will, urge the pretext of press of business and inevitable necessity.  But, even if you are under a press of business, it would not be like you to despise the distressed, to slight the law, or to refuse to yield to the prayers of your friends.